


The Tramp

by Oliveiswatching



Series: Compendium of Banditry [1]
Category: The Tramp (1915)
Genre: Gen, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliveiswatching/pseuds/Oliveiswatching
Summary: Part of a series on movie characters that I consider to be bandits- that is, assigned female at birth characters who are either trans men, or he/him butches (or who fall somewhere in between). Taken from The Tramp, 1915, dir. Charlie Chaplin





	The Tramp

It was funny, he thought, how easy it was to get by without a name. When you didn’t spend too long in any one place, and when you weren’t close to anyone, it didn’t seem to be important any longer. If the police got on him, like they sometimes did, then they certainly didn’t bother with the common courtesy of saying, “oh, well, my dear fellow, what’s your name? Oh, that’s lovely, now would you be so kind as to remove yourself from these premises and---”   
They’d just kick you out, usually literally. Even the somewhat friends he’d made, the men that he’d see sometimes hanging around and who were familiar enough to nod at, were always satisfied with that nod, and maybe a hello. Really, he much preferred it that way. He knew himself well enough, after all, to know that there was no way that he’d be quick-on-his-feet enough to come up with any answer, if someone were to ask his name, other than the truth. His name being Caroline, however, wouldn’t be a particularly helpful truth, and so it was much easier to have no one ask.   
Steady work was hard to come by, as scrawny as he was, but he really didn’t need much. Really, the only thing that more money might be able to get him was a few nights in some cheap flophouse, with a roof over his head— but he’s heard enough about the close quarters in them to know that it probably would be safer to stay out, under the stars. Life wasn’t particularly easy, but most nights he had enough to eat, and was safe in the knowledge that it was better to be a tramp than someone’s downtrodden wife. 

One day, he saw the most beautiful girl in the world. It wasn’t the first time, since most girls were the most beautiful girl in the world, at least while he saw them. This one, though, was different, because she didn’t look down her nose at him, or pretend he didn’t exist. She smiled, and, well, it’d been a damn long time since someone had smiled at him and meant it. So when her father assumed that he was answering the ad for someone to work (and, well, if he’d ever really learnt how to read then maybe he would have) he was happy to agree. He didn’t know where the old man had gotten the name Charlie from, but at least he hadn’t had to come up with something.   
Farm work, at least, was a mile easier than construction work, and even if he was, to be blunt, the clumsiest man that had ever lived, no one seemed to mind as long as he was at least trying to work. He’d watch the farmer’s daughter, sometimes, when both she and her father weren’t looking, but he was happy watching, and knowing nothing could ever come of it, even if a man could dream. A farm and a happy wife and three children running around chasing the chickens— there was nothing better in the world. But, well, that wasn’t going to happen. 

So, when three men came and tried to rob the farm, he didn’t even have to think about stopping them. Well, the trying to do something came naturally, at least, even if what seemed to work was entirely up to random chance. He’d never really thought about it before, but it was the easiest thing in the world to trip up everyone around him, which is not to say, of course, that he didn’t trip himself up as well. But, well, the specifics aren’t too important. Eventually, the three thieves are lying in a pile, and for once the police who come to clean up aren’t bothered by his presence.   
When the farmer’s daughter kisses him on the cheek, for an instant he sees the rest of his life laid out before him. They court, and steal embraces behind her father’s back in the barn, until he goes to her father and asks him for her father’s hand in marriage. He agrees, and calls him ‘son’ (imagine that! Him! A son!), and says that he’s happy his daughter has found such a good and trustworthy man. Then, a few years later— her father dies, and they’re both devastated at the loss, but it’s alright, because she inherits the farm and he’ll work it until the day he dies. Then, the day that he dies, a grieving wife by his side and surrounded by his four children, all of whom look exactly like him.   
But then, at the present, a young man runs up, and hugs the farmer’s daughter, and tells her that he’s so glad she’s safe, and that he’s so sorry he’d been away, and that he would talk to her father about maybe moving the wedding up a little, so that he could live with them and watch the farm— and then he understands. She’s already got her life planned out, and she’s going to be very happy with this young man. Maybe there’d be a place for him as the kindly farmhand, but, well, there’s no reason not to be honest with himself. To see her with another man— one who could actually be truthful with her, and give her children— isn’t what he wanted, or what she deserved.  
And so, he walked off, with a jaunty stride and a whistle. Farms are a dime a dozen, after all, and farmer’s daughters aren’t an endangered species. After all, Charlie was as good a name as any, and with a name, there’s really nothing he can’t do.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a larger series that I'm planning, which will be largely unedited  
Don't agree with my interpretations of any of the characters in these works? Don't care.


End file.
